President-elect Donald Trump's former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, reportedly is warning of an impending world conflict that could equate to "Trump's Vietnam."

The "War Room" host has been using his daily radio show and podcast to advocate that Trump make an announcement on "Day One" that he will end the war in Ukraine quickly.

In an interview with Politico, Bannon said he is aggressively urging that Trump do so in his Inauguration Day speech, warning that the soon-to-be 47th president could be entrapped by the U.S. defense industry, the Europeans and even some of Bannon’s own friends, who he says have teamed up to push the United States to continue sending military aid to Ukraine. That includes Keith Kellogg, a retired U.S. general who Trump tapped to become special envoy to Ukraine and Russia.

Though friends, Bannon says Kellogg is misguided in pushing that the U.S. continue sending aid to Ukraine while an agreement is sorted that includes security guarantees that make certain Russia will not launch another invasion.

A further delay in ending the three-year conflict, Bannon countered, risks the United States being pulled deeper into a war that cannot be won and runs counter to American national interests.

"If we aren’t careful, it will turn into Trump’s Vietnam," Bannon said. "That’s what happened to Richard Nixon. He ended up owning the war, and it went down as his war, not Lyndon Johnson’s."

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"I’m going nuts right now to make sure there’s something on Monday, an announcement," he added. "Because you have Kellogg saying it will take 100 days, the old foreign policy establishment are saying six months."

Bannon reportedly said Trump must communicate to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that "there’s a new sheriff in town, and we’re going to get a deal done, and we’re going to get it done quickly."

He added that Zelenskyy ought to pay attention to how Trump pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into accepting the terms of a cease-fire and hostage release deal with Hamas before the president-elect takes office.

Bannon lamented to Politico how he views NATO as having morphed into more of an American protectorate than an alliance.

"If you look at NATO, I don’t think it can put together two combat divisions of Europeans that are ready to fight," Bannon said. "Europe has gotten away with early retirement and full health care because they don’t pay for their own defense."

As for Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Bannon continued, "Putin’s a bad guy. He’s a very bad guy. The KGB are bad guys. But I don’t stay up at night worrying about Russian influence on Europe."

"Number 1, their military hasn’t even got to Kyiv. In three years, they couldn’t get there," Bannon said. "They haven’t taken Kharkiv even. You know why I don’t stay awake at night? Because the Europeans don’t stay awake at night. They don’t consider Russia a real threat. If they did, they would throw a lot more money and troops into the game."

Bannon, who said he supports Trump's proposals for the U.S. to gain control of Greenland and the Panama Canal, both in his eyes crucial to U.S. national security, then turned back to Europe.

He called former British Conservative leader Boris Johnson a "war criminal," adding that he believes too many European leaders consider themselves the Winston Churchill of their day. "The Ukraine war is the central screw-up of Europe over the last couple of years," Bannon told Politico. "You have a million dead or wounded Ukrainians. And we’re going to end up, best case, we’re going to end up exactly where this thing started, as I said three years ago. And it’s because you have Boris Johnson and [French President Emmanuel] Macron, all these fantasists that won’t pay for their own defense. They want to be big shots. They all want to be Winston Churchill with other people’s money and other people’s lives."

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Bannon says tech billionaires have 'surrendered' to Trump

Former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said in an exclusive interview on ABC News' "This Week" Sunday that tech billionaires' planned attendance at Monday's inauguration is a sign of their "official surrender" to President-elect Donald Trump.

"As soon as [Mark] Zuckerberg said, 'I've been invited. I'm going,' the floodgates opened up and they were all there knocking, trying to be supplicants. So I look at this and I think most people in our movement look at this as President Trump broke the oligarchs, he broke them and they surrendered," Bannon told "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl.

Meta's Zuckerberg and Amazon boss Jeff Bezos are among the tech executives set to appear at the inauguration, alongside close Trump ally Elon Musk, the world's richest man. Meta and Amazon are just two of the tech giants who have given money to President-elect Trump's inaugural fund.

In the wake of Trump's victory in November a handful of tech's most powerful executives have made trips to Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in Florida for meetings with the president-elect. But despite the show of support, Bannon remains skeptical of their allegiance to Trump and the MAGA movement, specifically citing Zuckerberg's recent alignment with the right.

"Zuckerberg's, you know, road to Damascus came a little late. It was after the Fifth of November," Bannon told Karl. "It's very, you know, now wants to be a bro. He Kung Fu fights. He's going to UFC. He's got his hair done differently. He's, he's cut. That doesn't hack it with me. That guy will flip on President Trump and he'll flip on us in the second. When it's convenient for him. He will flip."

Meta declined to comment on Bannon’s remarks.

Bannon, a stalwart of the MAGA movement and major influence in Trump's sphere during the early days of his first administration, has been one of the strongest supporters of the 45th president throughout his political career.

He frequently echoed Trump's false claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election and served four months in prison after defying a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

During his interview with Karl, Bannon insisted that Trump's message during Monday's inaugural address will be less dark than the first time around.

"I think he's going to try to unify the country around a course of action that we have to take, I think he'll lay out the challenges, and he'll lay out the beginning in some sort of 65-, 60,000-foot level -- what his policies and proposals are. But I think it'll all be about unifying the country and going forward together."

Bannon cited the broad coalition that led to Trump's return to the White House as a reason for the shift in tone.

"It's a whole ecosystem … You have working-class African Americans. You have South Texas in the Rio Grande Valley, people are now prepared not just to stop voting for Democrats, but to vote for him."

Bannon, told Karl that Trump has the ability to hold that wide-ranging coalition together like few other figures in American history.

"If you had to have somebody to do it, he's the guy to do it," Bannon said. "That's why he is at the level of Washington and Lincoln."

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Bannon calls Zuckerberg ‘a criminal’

Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President-elect Trump, called Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg a criminal during an interview on ABC’s “This Week” with Jonathan Karl.

During a discussion about Zuckerberg’s and other tech moguls’ relationships with Trump and the fact that they will be getting prime seats at the inauguration on Monday, Bannon said Trump “broke the oligarchs” and they “surrendered.”

Karl then asked if Bannon believed in Zuckerberg’s “conversion.”

“Absolutely not,” Bannon replied. “I think Mark Zuckerberg is a criminal.”

Bannon said he wants Zuckerberg to be “properly adjudicated” and referred to “Zuckerbucks,” a term Republicans use to refer to Zuckerberg pouring millions into a nonprofit that sent money to election boards in 2020. The contributions were intended to be “non-partisan,” per the Meta founder, but Republicans accused them of being unfairly distributed among left- and right-leaning areas.

“I want to see that in a systematic adjudication either in the House or, I think, better with a grand jury and a special prosecutor to go through 2020,” he continued.

When Karl asked if Bannon was calling for the Justice Department, under President-elect Trump, to prosecute Zuckerberg, Bannon clarified that he was not saying that.

“I didn’t say that,” he said.” What I want is the House to do it first. But if they’re not prepared to do it, a special counsel’s set up that looks at the 2020 election and looks at it seriously and adjudicates it. If there’s nothing there, there’s nothing there.”

However, he noted that he believes Zuckerberg will “flip on us in the second.”

It’s not the first time Bannon heavily criticized the Meta CEO, saying earlier last week that Zuckerberg “can’t be trusted” and pushing the unsubstantiated claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

“When it’s convenient for him, he will flip,” he said.

Bannon’s statements on ABC’s “This Week” come after it was announced that Zuckerberg will host a black-tie reception on Jan. 20 after Trump’s inauguration. In recent weeks, Zuckerberg attended a series of meetings with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort, made a $1 million donation to Trump’s inaugural fund and brought a swift end to Meta’s fact-checking program.

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Bannon’s Absence From Inauguration Suggests Musk May Be Getting the Last Laugh in MAGA War

Former White House strategist Steve Bannon was noticeably absent from the inauguration’s presidential fanfare on Monday amid his ongoing feud with Elon Musk.

Bannon’s normally active social media accounts were also radio silent on President Donald Trump’s big day, adding to the rumors of a growing civil war between MAGA’s old guard, led by Bannon, and its new billionaire leaders led by Musk.

While Bannon was MIA during the swearing-in ceremony, Musk was front and center, seated on the dais behind Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance and his wife, Usha Vance.

The seating arrangement is a blow to Bannon, who has vowed to kick “evil” Musk out of Trump’s entourage and take back MAGA from the billionaires for the populists.

However, the weight and influence of Trump’s new billionaire boys club has proved difficult for Bannon to shake.

Days before Trump’s inauguration, Bannon took another swipe at the “oligarchs” surrounding Trump by slamming the decision to move the inauguration indoors. Bannon claimed the move was most likely precipitated as a protection measure for the billionaires in Trump’s midst.

“It ain’t gonna be that cold,” said Bannon on the Saturday episode of his WarRoom podcast. “Just because the oligarchs are there. They’re too tender, coming from Silicon Valley. Are they too soft?”

Bannon has been at odds with the tech titans in Trump’s orbit ever since pharmaceutical billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy defended H-1B visas by asserting that Americans simply aren’t smart enough to fill top tech and engineering roles.

His comments, sparking outrage, were co-signed by Musk in a series of tweets as the Tesla CEO directed his anger at one commentator with: “Take a big step back and F--- YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.”

In an interview with NPR, Bannon doubled down on MAGA being a populist movement that will win above all.

“Here’s what upset me and why I got engaged. [Musk] called the American citizens retards the R word. [Musk didn’t use the word himself but promoted a post on X that used it],” said Bannon. “He dissed the MAGA movement as being racist, which is the old trope that the left. He used all the left tropes to come after us.”

He added, “These oligarchs in Silicon Valley, they have a very different view of how people should govern themselves. I call it techno-feudalism. They don’t believe in the underlying tenets of self-governance.”

Above all, MAGA is populist said Bannon.

“We’re populist. We believe American citizens should come first in everything. And in the visa program, there is no legal immigration to this country,” said Bannon.

When asked what it says that Trump listened to the “oligarchs” over him, Bannon responded: “Let’s see how that plays out.”

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